


Carry You Home

by Muccamukk



Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Canon Era, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s01e08 The Last Patrol, Exhaustion, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24635824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: Johnny and Bull in the day between patrols.
Relationships: Johnny Martin/Bull Randleman
Comments: 12
Kudos: 47
Collections: Loose Lips Sink Ships Prompt Meme





	Carry You Home

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Tec for beta reading.
> 
> Written for the Loose Lips Sink Ships prompt "Sleeping curled up together."

Johnny left the dank basement, left Cobb's drunken whining, and Jones' insecurity, and all the guys' bleak, exhausted stares, and went to find Bull.

What was left of first platoon had taken over a couple beaten down rowhouses back from the river, with Foley claiming the only decent bed. The LT nodded at Johnny as he came in, both of them long past the days of saluting.

"Heard you're going out again tonight?" Foley only half asked. Bad news always travelled faster than good.

"That's the word," Johnny agreed. "Need to catch some racktime."

He hadn't broken stride, and now pushed into the back of the house. Before Winters had tapped him, he'd staked out a little slanted room under the stairs. It only had one bed, but Bull had moved in without asking, saying he'd sleep on the floor. Johnny had, for a moment, pictured Bull curled up at his feet like a dog, but he'd known that neither of them would go without a bed, not for another night for the rest of their lives if they didn't have to.

Bull wasn't there though. He must have been out looking after the boys. Winters had ordered OPs all up and down the river, with half a squad in each. Johnny pictured Bull walking that line, dodging snipers and shells, imagined the way he'd keep his shoulders hunched in and his head down in an impossible attempt to make himself less of a target. They were Johnny's boys too, but Bull always looked after them.

Disappointed, Johnny peeled out of his boots and jacket, piling anything he couldn't sleep in on top of his ruck in the corner of the room. It leaned together with Bull's like a drunken bookend, and something about the way the two bags held each other up made Johnny's throat tighten. He was so exhausted he was getting maudlin, he decided, and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. Enough of this.

The bed didn't exactly have clean sheets, but it had some sheets and a pair of olive drab wool blankets that didn't smell like death. Johnny crawled into them and pulled the edges tight around himself as he curled into a ball. The house was warm enough that he didn't need to, not like he had in the Bois Jacques, but he did it anyway.

Johnny stared at the wall behind him, a colourless blur of stained wallpaper in the dim room. He knew that if he closed his eyes, he'd see Jackson's ruined face. He could hear the shuffle of feet in what had been the house's parlour and was now the platoon CP, but that wouldn't be enough to block out the sounds of a dying man's screams. Jackson had wanted his ma, at the end, like all the boys seemed to. The German they'd left on the riverbank probably had too.

"Jesus," he muttered, and for once it was more a prayer than a curse. For once, fucking Webster was right, and they should have gone back and shot that guy. Johnny was so tired of pain, both giving and receiving it. He just wanted this goddamn war to be over so that he could go home to Patty and sleep for a hundred years.

Too bad he couldn't seem to sleep now, even if he had to. He had to be sharp six hours hence, when Winters wanted him to get his boys ready to go again. What was the fucking point of that? Worse than Webster being right was _Cobb_ being right, and even Cobb didn't deserve to go into combat under a sergeant who was asleep at the wheel.

Johnny closed his eyes and tried counting backwards from two hundred, which was a trick that sometimes worked. This time, as he'd expected, all he saw was that basement, his own hands holding Jackson down. Worse, he saw Bill, or how he imagined Bill would have looked, with his leg all blown to hell. Luz had said that he and Toye were making jokes all the way to the aid station, but that wasn't the part Johnny ever thought about. He should have been there.

He couldn't afford to think about that now. Not about Bill's letter talking about the hospital and the docs cutting his leg off while he watched, neither. That had caught up with them just before they'd gotten into town, and Johnny had burst into tears in the middle of Easy's CP just reading it.

He felt like he could cry now, over fucking Jackson of all people. Johnny didn't even remember the kid's first name. How could you be in a company with someone for more than two years and not remember their name? Johnny supposed that Speirs or someone would write the letter. "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, I regret to inform you that your son What's His Name died running into his own grenade and got his face blown off. If only he'd listened to his sergeant when he screamed at him to stop. If only his damn fool CO hadn't sent him on that idiotic mission."

It was a good thing no one ever asked Johnny to write those letters, though he did if it was one of the guys he loved. He'd written one for Hoobler. He'd write one for Bull, if it came to it.

As if the thought had summoned him, the floorboards outside the door creaked, and then Bull was pushing into the room. Johnny stayed facing the wall, but he knew the sound of Bull's movements by heart.

"Didn't know you were back," Bull said, and Johnny heard the clink of his buckles as he started to strip down.

"Just got in," Johnny answered, almost the truth. "Wasn't planning to wait up on you." A lie.

"Got caught up at OP Six," Bull answered. "Boys are right jumpy, thought a branch in the water was a Kraut patrol crossing over and wanted to call in an airstrike."

"Replacements?" Johnny asked, but he knew better.

"Naw, couple of Pat's boys. Hashey and them." Bull pulled the covers out from under Johnny's ass and crawled into bed behind him.

Johnny lifted his head so that Bull could slide his arm under it, then clenched Bull's other arm with both hands when it wrapped around his waist. Even with most of their clothes still on, heat poured off of Bull. Johnny wiggled his butt back against Bull's stomach. He wished they could do more, but they hadn't had the privacy for it in months. He missed Bull's hands on him, the oblivion of sex, the feel of being held, after, and knowing that someone was there to look after him.

"Heard you lost a man," Bull said, eventually.

"Yeah, Jackson," Johnny answered, though he didn't want to talk about it.

Bull sucked his teeth, and tightened his arm around Johnny's stomach, nearly squeezing the breath out of him.

Johnny almost asked what Jackson's Christian name had been, knowing that Bull probably remembered it, but didn't have the heart. What difference did it make? The kid was dead, no matter what he'd been called. Dead, and he'd been under Johnny's command, like Webb had been, and Julian, and all those other beautiful stupid boys.

"You going out tonight?" Bull asked.

"Yeah, probably," Johnny admitted. He didn't want to talk about that, either.

Bull buried his face in the back of Johnny's neck and inhaled deeply, not seeming to care that Johnny's hair was greasy or that a fast, lukewarm shower hadn't done a hell of a lot to cut the smell.

"It weren't your fault." Bull said it confidently, like he could know what happened when he hadn't even been on MG detail, let alone the patrol. He'd always had too much faith in Johnny.

"Yes it was," Johnny answered. Jackson had been an idiot, but Johnny had put him on point, just because he was a Toccoa man. If Don Malarkey had led that patrol, would he have made the same choice?

Bull sighed, his breath puffing Johnny's hair. "I can do the next one," he said, finally.

"No!" Johnny snapped, and the loudness of it made Bull flinch, his chest jerking against Johnny's back. Johnny hadn't meant that. "I don't want anyone from first going," he said, but Bull knew what he wasn't saying.

"You feel better when it's Don's boys, not yours?" Bull asked, cruel as winter.

Johnny shook his head, denying that it could be true, at the same time as he muttered resentfully, "Didn't even like Jackson."

"No?"

"No." Johnny gritted his teeth against the pain clawing at his throat, threatening a fresh storm of tears. How could you weep for a man whose name you didn't even remember? Maybe it was just that Johnny's whole goddamn life made him want to cry just then. He couldn't take the way Bull folded Johnny in his arms. Even when Johnny was hanging onto Bull's arm, it felt too much like being possessed.

"Easy, Johnny," Bull murmured, and knowing that Bull could feel the tension, no, the pain ricocheting through Johnny's body just made it worse. What had he been thinking coming here and looking for Bull? He could have bunked with second, and everyone would have known enough to leave him alone. Johnny hadn't built up a reputation as a misanthropist for nothing.

Too bad Bull had never fallen for any of that.

Johnny wriggled around until he was facing Bull. With his knees pulled up, he still fit into the curve of Bull's embrace, but now he could press his face against Bull's uniform blouse, foul smell and all, and shut out the rest of the world. He could feel the steady thud of Bull's heart against his cheek, and that was all he needed in the whole world. If only he could stay like this forever, safe in Bull's arms, hands warm and steady on his back.

In too few hours, he knew he'd get out of the first bunk he'd slept in in months, shoulder his M1, walk across town, and lead someone else's men back into combat. He'd do it, because if he didn't, one of his friends would, and Johnny couldn't take that, either. "You're not going across that river," he muttered to Bull. "Not ever."

Bull's chest jolted with a suppressed laugh. "We'll haveta eventually."

"Someone else can invade Germany," Johnny insisted. "We done enough."

They both knew that the army didn't work like that. If they hadn't learned it in Normandy, they had in Holland, then had Belgium pounded into even the thickest skulls for good measure. Only mad fools like Bill came back to the line after taking a licking like that, no matter what the fellows hazing Webster said. If Johnny ever got into one of those replacement depots, he'd make damn sure the army lost his paperwork until the war was over. Or he would, if that wouldn't leave Bull all alone, now.

Johnny wished he were the sort of man everyone thought he was: one who would leave his friends to fend for themselves while he stayed safe. He wished he could blame Bill for coming back so that they didn't have to march into winter and death without him, but Johnny wouldn't have made it as far as he had if Bill had stayed in England, not any more than he could consider the idea of living if he ever heard that something had happened to Bull while he'd been looking after his own interests.

Bull was stroking his back and pressing his lips to Johnny's hair. Bull had been up all night too, waiting for the patrol to get in, and then checked on all the OPs. Bull who was just as sick and tired of it all as Johnny was. He shouldn't have to be bothering with Johnny fussing on top of all that. If they were somewhere private, Johnny would show Bull how much this meant to him, his hands and mouth offering what words never seemed to. Now he had nothing but ashes in his mouth and a knot growing in his throat again.

He didn't know what finally dragged the first sob out of him, maybe it was the way Bull hummed comfortingly and touched Johnny like he mattered. Maybe he was just too goddamn tired to do anything else. His back shook, and Bull drew him in close, arms wrapping tight around Johnny's back. Johnny took a double fistful of Bull's shirt and held on as his body started to rattle like a C-37 on a fast descent. He knew that trying to stop would only make it hurt more, so he held on and let himself cry.

Bull had the decency not to tell him it was going to be okay, or to say anything at all. He just held Johnny close and didn't say a word. His heart beat steady against Johnny's cheek, even as Johnny's tears soaked through his blouse and snot dribbled out of his nose.

As quickly as it had come on, the tears passed. Johnny lifted his head enough to wipe his nose on the back of his sleeve, before nuzzling into Bull's shirt again and staying perfectly still.

Bull's body heaved as he sighed and loosened his hold on Johnny. He stroked Johnny's hair for a moment before asking. "You gone be able to sleep now, boy?"

Johnny considered it. His very bones ached from exhaustion, and his throat and nose felt raw from crying, and he'd just realised that he was hungry. All in all, if he'd been run over by a deuce and a half and left in the mud, he probably wouldn't have felt a whole lot worse. But the images that had been hovering behind his eyes seemed to have let him be for the moment, and he felt a quietness in him that hadn't been there before Bull had gotten into bed.

"Might be," he muttered, and squirmed back around so that Bull was spooning him from behind again.

Bull kissed the back of his neck, his beard soft against Johnny's skin, and thankfully didn't say anything. Johnny sniffled and closed his eyes, enjoying the quiet solidity of the man behind him. He'd sleep now, he knew, for a few hours, anyway, and then he'd get up and do it all again.

Johnny knew that Bull wouldn't lie to him, and that's why he never told him it was going to be all right, but a little part of him this time wished he would, just this once. He wished he could be soothed into sleep with the fantasy that he wouldn't go out there and lose another man like he had the night before. Bull _had_ said that it wasn't Johnny's fault, at least, and he held onto that, even as he'd denied it. Well, even Denver Randleman had his blind spots.

"Bull?" he asked, voice still rough from crying, or maybe it was screaming.

"Mmm?"

"Jackson, what was his name, do you know?"

Bull hummed and thought it over for a moment. "Eugene, maybe?"

"Eugene Jackson," Johnny repeated. That did sound right. "Need to write his folks a letter. Second still don't have a looey."

"It'll keep," Bull told him.

"Yeah." Johnny might as well wait and see if he had to do a batch of them, he supposed, or maybe he'd get out of the whole thing.

Thing was, he wasn't like Malarkey had been in the forests of the Ardennes; Johnny wasn't looking for a bullet; he had too much to live for, all those dreams of home, even if they seemed as faded as a picture postcard left in the sun. He kept a photo of Pat in his helmet so he didn't forget her face, and it was hard to forget Bull when he was always right there at Johnny's elbow, looking out for him.

How, exactly, Bull fit into Johnny's vision of home hadn't yet become clear, but he always seemed to be there when Johnny thought about it, him and Pat and Johnny together, all in the blurred sepia of wishing.

It was that fantasy that Johnny held onto as he drifted down to sleep, that and the warmth of Bull's breath on the back of his neck.


End file.
